As for the future of the planet, the Tory leadership contest is off to a dark start.
Controversy erupted over the government’s flagship climate policy – the goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – almost as soon as Boris Johnson fell back to number 10 following his resignation speech.
Several leadership candidates have cast doubt on the net-zero goal, promised to change it in some way, or taken positions against some of the green policies needed to reach it. Several of those candidates have since been eliminated, and on Friday, four of the five remaining candidates committed to keeping a clean sheet, with only Kemi Badenoch still holding out.
However, campaigners believe the lack of enthusiasm for climate action among some MPs does not bode well for future action. A new prime minister could easily ascend to 10 Downing Street by paying lip service to the net zero target while failing to push through any of the concrete policies needed to achieve it.
Yet the goal is vital not just for the UK but for the world at a crucial time. Addressing the climate crisis was linked to addressing the cost-of-living crisis because cutting emissions means ending dependence on volatile fossil fuels, said Tom Burke, a veteran government adviser and co-founder of the green think tank E3G. “They are closely related. High gas prices are the problem; isolation is the fastest way to reduce bills,” he said.
The UK also risks missing out on economic opportunities, warned Nick Molho of the Aldersgate Group, which represents firms interested in net zero. “It’s about investment in industries like steel, cement, chemicals that will go elsewhere, go to competing countries if they don’t come here,” he said.
Abandoning climate action would have global ramifications, as the UK currently holds the lead on UN climate talks until Egypt takes over this November. Lord Adair Turner, former chairman of the climate change commission and the employers’ organization CBI, who now chairs the Energy Transition Commission, said: “This would be a catastrophic loss of international confidence gained at Cop26 [climate summit] in Glasgow to move away from our net zero commitment. If the UK were to move away from net zero, it would be a shock to our global reputation for policy coherence and to our responsibility in the world.”
Senior Tories understand the danger. “Economically, environmentally and electorally, it would be a retrograde step for us to oppose this policy [of net zero]. This is a road to nowhere,” warned Alok Sharma, the cabinet minister who chaired Cop26, in an interview with i newspaper.
Theresa May, former prime minister and chairman of the Aldersgate Group of businesses, told a reception: “What we have to remember is that whatever happens, it is absolutely critical for the future of our planet, for the future of people’s lives and their jobs and their prosperity. And we shouldn’t take our foot off the gas at all.”
Voices from across the political spectrum and beyond joined in. Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief science adviser, tried to keep the debate on a solid factual basis by briefing parliament on Monday on climate science. It was attended by only 70 deputies and colleagues.
Green campaigners, meanwhile, have indicated that a large majority of public opinion, in poll after poll, is firmly behind net-zero consumption policies and strong climate action, particularly in the “red wall” seats that Labor will seek to reclaim in the north of England and blue wall seats where the Lib Dems are challenging the Tories in the south. The latest Opinium poll this week showed that more than half of Conservative Party members think the government is doing the right thing by acting on the climate crisis, or should be doing more.
Pat Venditti, acting chief executive of Greenpeace UK, said: “Green policies can be the salvation of any future leader. They are hugely popular with voters and will do well on the pressing multiple crises we face.”
Businesses also chimed in, including big names such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, Unilever and Lloyds Banking Group – companies that would normally receive a favorable hearing from the Conservative Party – warning of any dilution of the net zero target for at-risk jobs and economic prosperity.
Elliott Whittington, director of CLG UK, which organized the business letter, said: “The Conservative Party has a significant track record of climate leadership. Their new leader will have a choice between building on this experience and delivering results for the UK economy and society, or abandoning it and condemning the country to fall behind in the energy transition and face unnecessary costs and risks.
Yet despite these pleas and interventions, the debate over net zero and the future of climate policy looks set to continue to rage as the Tory leadership race unfolds in the coming weeks, in ways that imperil the prospect of decisive climate action in the crucial next few years and with consequences for many years to come.
For many on the right of the Tory party, net zero has picked up where Brussels left off, as the object of hatred and blame for the UK’s myriad ills. Lord Frost, the civil servant who negotiated Brexit and was elevated to the Lords by Johnson, shifted his focus from rebuking the EU to outrage at the fracking ban and North Sea gas expansion. Similar calls to scrap net zero have been raised by a chorus of Tory stalwarts, from Charles Moore, the former editor of the Telegraph, to former party leader Sir Ian Duncan Smith.
The reward for such campaigners would be to turn net zero into a culture war issue, dividing the nation as Brexit did, and to win support for new fossil fuel exploration in the UK, which they claim would lower the cost of living despite strong evidence to the contrary. Their model is the US, where almost all Democrats want climate action, but only about half of Republican voters do, while Republican politicians stand firmly in the way of climate policies in Congress.
So for climate skeptics – “always a small minority in the party, but some of the candidates come from that tradition,” according to Sam Hall of the Conservative Environment Network – the resignation of Johnson, a staunch defender of green issues, offered a compelling opportunity.
The first to throw his hat into the ring, in an interview with the Guardian, was arch-Brexiter and right-winger Steve Baker, pledging to make net zero review a key part of his platform. It was a gesture without much chance of success, given his lack of experience and reputation as a marginal figure, but calculated as a challenge to other right-wing candidates to adopt a similar position.
Of course, Suella Braverman, the attorney general, took it up, announcing her own pledge to delay net zero, if not eliminate it entirely, and Baker withdrew his challenge to support her. She was quickly followed by Badenoch, the former equalization minister, standing on an “anti-wake” platform, who wants to change the net zero target in ways that have not yet been fully laid out. With Braverman now eliminated, many of her votes are expected to go to Badenoch.
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Mark Lynas, a veteran environmentalist and co-founder of the green campaign group RePlanet, was appalled at the spectacle of so many candidates resisting such a vital goal. “It is deeply worrying that the commitment to net zero appears to be increasingly being called into question by the right wing of the Tory party. Boris Johnson was not a Green, but the idea that we could have a minister who wants to abandon net zero is a terrifying prospect,” he said. “With virtually the entire Northern Hemisphere baking in unprecedentedly high temperatures, time is running out to avoid devastating climate impacts.”
Given this attack, it may seem paradoxical, but the UK’s current climate target – to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – has probably never been more certain. None of the experts, inside or outside the Tory party contacted by the Guardian, believed there was any serious danger of its repeal.
Changing the target would require legislation that, despite the government’s 80-strong majority, is unlikely to pass. The Conservatives are also unlikely to campaign in the next general election on an explicit platform of abandoning net zero, as public opinion is strongly in favor of climate action.
What worries climate action advocates is less any overt move by the next Tory leader to abandon net zero than the possibility – perhaps the likelihood in the case of some candidates – that the target will be left to falter on the dustbin of politics.
That would indeed spell disaster, climate experts warn. Strong new policies are urgently needed as the UK falls far short of its targets, according to a recent devastating assessment by the independent Climate Change Committee. Home insulation, for example, should be a priority: there is currently no national policy for retrofitting houses, only faint gestures towards the necessary large-scale program to install heat pumps.
Sean Spiers, chief executive of the Green Alliance think tank, said: “The main question [for the next prime minister] it is not whether they will keep the goal in place, but whether they will do enough to achieve it. Achieving net zero is not easy, and unless the government makes it a core mission, it will not be achieved.
Joshua Marks, senior researcher at liberal conservatism think tank Bright Blue, said achieving net zero would require more innovation, more investment and a renewed focus on key areas such as renewable energy, transport, infrastructure and nature. “We really need to move forward in all of these…
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